Development of an Educational Programme Together with Kostamuksha Branch of PEtrSU for the Needs of European Union Enterprises (Tacis)
Funded by Euregio Karelia Neighbourhood Programme 2001-2006

Objective of the project

The goal of the project was to establish a continued educational programme in the Kostamuksha area in order to train the employees of European affiliate companies operating in Russia on European business and production models, international markets and global economy and issues related to working culture and work environment.

Main activities

• Organisation of a kick-off meeting between the project partners, • Selection and recruitment of teachers for the educational programme, • Training of the selected Russian teachers in order to ensure the teachers’ professional expertise for the educational programme intended for Russian workers, • Planning and implementation of the continued educational programme by the Finnish and Russian teachers, • Evaluation and organization of the evaluation seminar.

Achievements

The continued educational programme included three modules: the basics of economics, production management and planning, and working culture and work community. In the beginning of the project it became clear that the recruited Russian teachers needed further training for them to be able to teach the chosen topics. It was decided that the best way to train the Russian teachers was to embed them with the final target group – the workers of the companies. Seven Russian teachers took part in the first phase of the educational programme along with nine company workers and thus upgraded their skills on the topics to be taught in the upcoming courses. The educational programme was upgraded based on the feedback received from students in the first set of training. The second phase of the educational programme was intended solely for the company workers and was planned and implemented by the Finnish and Russian teachers. Russian teachers were now able to teach training modules independently. 16 students were selected from the companies for the programme. In addition, also the teaching facilities were improved at the Kostamuksha brand of PEtrSU through creating a new computer lab. In addition, the Finnish teachers also gained more information about the markets in Russia and how European companies operate there. There were a total of 40 training days. 25 employees from the companies took part in the educational training and upgraded their skills on production and human resources management. The number of participating workers was lower than planned because the production processes could not allow higher rates of absence from work. A concrete 20-day long programme was established and tested in practice, which can help companies to bridge the gap of know-how and information that exists in their companies in Russia. This helps the Russian companies’ position in global markets. The programme can offer its support to the European companies, which aim to increase business cooperation in the adjacent areas of Finland and Russia or are already established there.